System and method for business to business sales and marketing integration

Abstract

A system for marketing and sales in a business-to-business environment is disclosed. The system includes a close integration of sales and marketing personnel of an organization maximize awareness of the organization in the minds of prospective customers and to be considered as a possible supplier when needs arise. This integration further is utilized to enhance the organization's response to RFP's issued by prospective customers. The system is used to identify unmet customer needs and solutions, to utilize cross-functional teams to more effectively respond to RFPs, and to collaborate with the customer at all levels to achieve and maintain a positive customer experience. The system also provides a variety of consolidated information tools to sales and marketing groups to optimize all oral and written interactions with prospective customers as well as current customers. Examples of such tools include an RFP Response Wizard, a Win Improvement Toolkit, a Learning from Losses newsletter, and a Customer Experience Kit, among others. Success metrics are also used to track the effectiveness of marketing/sales efforts.

1 . A machine readable storage device tangibly embodying a series of instructions executable by a machine to perform a series of instructions, the instructions comprising:
 collecting and storing business data regarding a sales prospect in a machine readable storage medium;   providing said business data to individual members of a cross-functional team, the cross-functional team comprising individuals from at least marketing and sales departments of an organization;   using said business data, and information regarding at least one product or service provided by the organization, to encourage the sales prospect to issue a request for proposal to the organization;   generating a response to the request for proposal using a response engine that uses at least a portion of said stored business data to automatically populate a response template; and   submitting said response to the sales prospect.   
     
     
         2 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the step of generating a response further comprises using the response engine to automatically control brand and language consistency throughout the response. 
     
     
         3 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the step of generating a response further comprising using the response engine to automatically tailor content of the response to at least one characteristic of the sales prospect 
     
     
         4 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 1 , further comprising the instruction: obtaining a measure of an effectiveness of the response using a success metric, wherein the metric is selected from the group consisting of oral presentation invitation frequency, demonstration invitation frequency, and cost per invitation. 
     
     
         5 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 1 , wherein the cross-functional team further comprises individuals from product development, marketing, account management, and service departments of the organization. 
     
     
         6 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 5 , wherein the cross-functional team further comprises individuals from sales and marketing departments of a client company of said organization. 
     
     
         7 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 1 , further comprising obtaining information from the sales prospect regarding a purchase decision made by the sales prospect based on the organization's response to the request for proposal, said information including the purchaser's rationale for the purchase decision. 
     
     
         8 . The machine readable storage device of  claim 7 , further comprising generating a cross-sell model that includes information selected from the list consisting of a customer testimonial, a customer case study, and a customer endorsement. 
     
     
         9 . A marketing and sales method for facilitating business-to-business relationships, comprising:
 collecting and storing business data regarding a sales prospect in at least one database;   providing said business data to a member of a cross-functional team, the cross-functional team comprising marketing and sales personnel of an organization;   using said business data, and information regarding at least one product or service provided by the organization, to encourage the sales prospect to issue a request for proposal to the organization;   generating a response to the request for proposal using a response engine that uses information from said database to automatically populate a response template using at least a portion of said stored business data; and   submitting said generated response to the sales prospect;   wherein the step of providing said business data to a member of a cross-functional team comprises retrieving data from said database and displaying said processed data to at least one of said members on a display.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the step of generating a response further comprises using the response engine to automatically control brand and language consistency throughout the response. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the step of generating a response further comprising using the response engine to automatically tailor content of the response to at least one characteristic of the sales prospect 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising obtaining a measure of an effectiveness of the response using a success metric, wherein the success metric is selected from the group consisting of oral presentation invitation frequency, demonstration invitation frequency, and cost per invitation. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the cross-functional team further comprises product development, marketing, account management, and service department personnel of the organization. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the cross-functional team further comprises sales and marketing department personnel of a client company of said organization. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising obtaining information from the sales prospect regarding a purchase decision made by the sales prospect based on the organization's response to the request for proposal, said information including the purchaser's rationale for the purchase decision. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , further comprising generating a cross-sell model that includes information selected from the list consisting of a customer testimonial, a customer case study, and a customer endorsement. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein said cross-sell model includes an algorithm for identifying one or more additional prospective customers using information obtained from said prospective customer. 
     
     
         18 . A method for facilitating business-to-business relationships for use in a system comprising a computer having a processor, a computer-readable medium associated with the processor, and a display, the method comprising:
 collecting and storing business data regarding a sales prospect, at least a portion of said business data being stored in a computer readable storage medium;   providing said business data to individual members of a cross-functional team, the cross-functional team comprising marketing and sales personnel of an organization;   using said business data and at least one of information regarding market trends, sales prospect needs, information regarding at least one competitor product, and information regarding at least one product or service provided by the organization, to encourage the sales prospect to issue a request for proposal to the organization;   wherein information regarding sales prospect needs is obtained using a questionnaire submitted to the sales prospect, the questionnaire generated by the cross-functional team;   generating a response to the request for proposal using a processor-based response engine that uses at least a portion of said stored business data to automatically populate a response template; and   submitting the response to the sales prospect;   wherein the step of providing said business data to individual members of a cross-functional team comprises retrieving data from said computer readable storage medium, performing a first computer process on said data using the processor, and displaying said processed data to at least one of said members using the display.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the step of generating a response further comprises using the response engine to automatically control brand and language consistency throughout the response. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the step of generating a response further comprising using the response engine to automatically tailor content of the response to at least one characteristic of the sales prospect 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 18 , further comprising obtaining a measure of an effectiveness of the response using a success metric, wherein the success metric is selected from the group consisting of oral presentation invitation frequency, demonstration invitation frequency, and cost per invitation. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein the cross-functional team further comprises product development, marketing, account management, and service personnel of the organization. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 22 , wherein the cross-functional team further comprises sales and marketing personnel of a client company of said organization. 
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 18 , further comprising obtaining information from the sales prospect regarding a purchase decision made by the sales prospect based on the organization's response to the request for proposal, said information including the purchaser's rationale for the purchase decision. 
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 24 , further comprising generating a cross-sell model that includes information selected from the list consisting of a customer testimonial, a customer case study, and a customer endorsement. 
     
     
         26 . The method of  25 , wherein said cross-sell model includes an algorithm for identifying one or more additional prospective customers using information obtained from said prospective customer.